Those following the James “Whitey” Bulger proceedings are well aware that tensions have been running high all summer long between the lawyers.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly fired the latest salvo in a July 9 motion opposing a defense request to have U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns taken off the case.

Bulger’s Boston lawyers, J.W. Carney Jr. and Hank Brennan, contend that Stearns can’t preside over the trial, as his work as a lead prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office during key periods of the case prevent him from fairly hearing the matter.

Kelly held back nothing when he called the defense’s June 25 motion “frivolous and unsubstantiated.”

He is asking Stearns, who must rule on the recusal motion, to deny the request without a hearing. If Stearns were to do so, Bulger would likely seek an immediate challenge to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kelly also used his opposition to repeat an argument he has raised numerous times in recent months: Bulger’s filings are motivated by little more than a desire to delay the start of his March 2013 trial.

“As the First Circuit has noted, ‘recusal motions are sometimes driven more by litigation strategies than by ethical concerns,’” he wrote. “Such is the case here.”

Carney, who has clearly put the prosecution on the defensive in recent weeks, countered that he has raised legitimate constitutional issues in an effort to zealously represent a client charged with a serious set of crimes.

Kelly also seemed quite concerned about Carney’s recent suggestions that Bulger had an agreement with the government shielding him from prosecution for all of the crimes listed in the indictments.

Carney has stated that Bulger reached the deal with a still-unnamed Department of Justice agent in the 1970s.

Win, lose or draw, Carney’s yet-to-be-filed dismissal motion promises to contain some fireworks. It also appears inevitable that when the time comes to names names, Carney’s evidence will point the finger of blame in the direction of at least one lawyer. Whether that evidence comes in the form of recorded conversations, written reports or witness testimony remains to be seen.

As we all await the motion, Kelly told the court in his filing that Carney’s stunning suggestion is simply untrue. He noted that the defense has “utterly failed” to identify anyone who supposedly made the promise.

“Defendant appears to be renewing the previously rejected immunity claims made by his partner in crime, Stephen Flemmi,” Kelly wrote. “Of course, even Flemmi did not ever make the absurd claim that he was authorized to commit murder.”

On top of that, former FBI handler John Connolly has repeatedly stated that Bulger was not authorized to commit violent crimes, Kelly said in the filing. He criticized Carney for failing to note in his June 25 papers that three former federal prosecutors, William Weld, Jeremiah O’Sullivan and Gary Crossen, have all previously denied – under oath – that they ever authorized Bulger to commit crimes.

Even if Weld, O’Sullivan and Crossen are kept out of it, there are plenty of other attorneys who could potentially be implicated.